


One flew east, one flew west

by isquinnabel



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/pseuds/isquinnabel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A close encounter at a highway rest stop in 1987. They’re 16 and 19, they’re both unhappy, and they’re not at all ready to meet each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One flew east, one flew west

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to OzQueen for being beta/cheerleader extraordinare, as usual <3
> 
> Idk, I seem to write these two pre-canon an awful lot. (Probably because they're awesome, let's not deny it.)
> 
> PG-13 for language.

Sulking. There’s no way to sugarcoat it; she’s sulking, plain and simple. 

Summer vacation is the worst. At any other time of year she can play the studious-hermit card and hide behind a wall of extra credit assignments and looming finals. She misses it. She may not exactly miss school itself, but she misses being busy. She misses losing herself in the grind of deadlines and papers, and accumulating piles of library books almost as tall as she is. (She also misses inventing some important assignment so she can just lie undisturbed on her bed. Staring at the ceiling with the cat purring away on her chest. Mind wandering wherever it wills. Solitude. If they think she’s studying, they leave her alone.)

When the structure of the school year disappears, so does any sort of freedom. Her summer is split into Quality Time With Mom and Quality Time With Dad. She’s sliced, divided, and shared. She’s the last cookie in the jar, broken in half for two kids who can’t stop arguing over who got the biggest piece.

(Feeling like this gives her a sick, guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach. They fight each other so hard for their time with her, and yet she can barely bring herself to smile politely when the need arises. _Why yes, I’d love to spend a week driving god-knows-where with Dad and his new girlfriend,_ is what she should be saying. _I thought you’d never ask._ )

She leans her forehead against the window, relaxes her eyes, and watches the world blur past. She thinks about nothing. She doesn’t think about the summer class she could be taking right now (she would have chosen molecular biology). She doesn’t think about the dozens of parties that she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to go to anyway (she’s too scared. She’s a baby. It’s the thing she hates most about herself). She definitely doesn’t think about traitor older sisters who decided to escape to Europe for the summer (she hates, _hates_ Rachel for leaving her to suffer alone) (but mostly because Rachel might just be the one person on Earth who she doesn’t hate at all).

They pull into a rest stop and Dad says something casual about needing to stretch their legs. He catches her eye in the rear view mirror, and fixes her with a stare that’s both pleading and demanding. He hates sulking. He _really_ hates sulking. And he wants her to at least try to get along with his girlfriend.

She’s not in the mood to play the role of dutiful daughter, but she does because she has to. She drags herself out of the car. Her muscles feel like they’re made out of cardboard, and she’s acutely aware of her arms while submitting to questioning about school and friends and homework. They feel wrong just swinging uselessly by her sides. She tries folding them behind her back. She tries putting her hands in her pockets. She fiddles with her hair and picks at her nails, trying to come up with answers that sound as non-pathetic as possible without technically being lies. They’re both relieved when Dad joins them again, finished checking whatever it is dads check during long car trips.

She stands awkwardly to one side, not particularly keen to watch the two of them fall into easy conversation. Their asides and their banter and their inside jokes make her feel lonelier than ever, and she takes her chance to slip quietly away. It’s a highway rest stop, so it’s not like there’s anywhere in particular to go. The best she can do is hide behind the bathroom. She leans against the faded brick of the wall, and tries to enjoy a few moments of peace.

The ground back here is littered with cigarette butts, and a beat-up copy of _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ sticks out from behind a dying shrub. The air is thick with the smell of either too much disinfectant or nowhere near enough. Now isn’t the time to be picky though, so she sinks to her knees and tries to ignore the laughs wafting over from the car.

Earlier in the day, she had passed some time drawing a pattern of elaborate swirls across her left leg. As soon as blue ink stretched from her top of her sock to the hem of her shorts, she’d lost interest and stuck the pen through her ponytail. She tugs it out now and chews absently on the lid, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. She can’t quite put into words all the things that are wrong with this whole scenario. If someone could see the expression on her face right now and say _hey, Juliet, are you okay? Is something wrong?_ she wouldn’t know how to answer. She’d probably just be all, _no, no, I’m fine._ But she’s not fine. Everything is far from fine.

Dad calls her name and, on a whim, she whips around and scrawls on the wall. When she emerges from behind the bathroom, the pen is back in her hair and her face is carefully blank. She obediently walks back into the car and climbs into the back seat, because she’s the good little girl who’s too scared to rebel openly. The worst she’ll do is deliberately track dirt into the car, and leave behind three words of graffiti that no one will ever see.

 

\----------

 

He’s in deep shit.

Time is running out. It’s running the hell out and the reality of it is starting to wear him down. He can feel the noose inching tighter and tighter around his neck, because each footfall marks another passing second that he can’t turn back. He’d sooner let Hickman get him than admit it, let the little bastard do the $6000 worth of damage he promised, but he’s scared. He’s so damn scared.

He walks on autopilot. The frayed cuffs of his jeans scrape along hard cement as his feet carry him forward. He looks like someone with purpose; he has the stride of a man with the world wrapped around his finger, someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone. It’s an image he’s perfected. Some days he even manages to fool himself. (Today is not one of them.)

He ends up at one of his regular haunts, a rest stop on the nearby interstate. His game plan for the next few hours is to stare hard at the road and play with the thought of just hitching a ride and getting out of there. Hell, it’s still an option. Cut and run. Forget about Hickman, forget about the six grand, forget about the fact that he ever even considered doing this. It ain’t too late yet.

When he arrives, the air is full of dust; must have just missed a carload of people. Close call. Apparently he still has at least some luck on his side. Except, he doesn’t. He doesn’t have luck on his side at all. He’s out of time. He has to decide today, _right now_ , what he’s going to do. He could run, with nothing but the shirt on his back and the shit in his pockets: loose change, a sharpie, and a condom. He could run like hell, see how far it gets him, and hope that Hickman never tracks him down. He could spend the rest of his life with his fingers crossed, constantly looking over his shoulder.

Or he could stay, and finish what he’s already started. He’s so close. If he plays her right tonight, he could have Hickman paid off a few hours later. 

This whole place could be history by tomorrow morning.

He’s out of smokes, and he’s too agitated to sit still or read. He paces round and round, circling the tiny bathroom. It’s been a harsh summer, and brown grass crunches under his feet. His legs ache, and after what feels like his thousandth circuit of the building, he’s had about enough. _This isn’t something you can walk off,_ he snaps at himself. It smells like a sewer around here, and the relentless heat doesn’t help, but it ain’t like he deserves any better. He retreats to the tiny patch of shade under the eaves, and leans his forehead against the bricks. 

He don’t really have a choice, and he knows it. All this screwing around at the rest stop, fantasizing about running away, it’s putting off the inevitable. He’s just been too chickenshit to actually go through with it, and that has to stop right now.

He indulges in a couple more seconds against the wall, eyes closed, listening to his pulse pounding in his ears. No one drives past, and the silence in this place is almost intrusive. Quiet solitude usually calms him down a little, but not today. Nothing’s sitting right with him; the only thing worse than silence is sound, and he swats angrily at a fly that decides to bring its noisy ass too close.

When he finally manages to pull himself upright, a blue smudge on the wall catches his eye. 

A dimple plays at the corner of his mouth, and he huffs a quiet laugh into the oppressive stillness. Feels like a long damn time since anything got a genuine smile out of him, but something about this hits him just right. Prim little girl-scout handwriting, neatly spaced in the dead center of a brick, calmly proclaiming _fuck this place_ to the world.

He stays a moment longer, gazing at the wall with a big dumb grin on his face. Hell, it’s _hilarious_. It also kinda makes him feel pleasantly nostalgic, which ain’t a feeling he gets to experience much. He almost enjoys remembering a time when the worst thing he ever did was ruin someone’s wall. Back before ruining someone’s life ever ended up on the cards.

His mind is made up, and he knows exactly what he’s going to do tonight. He passed the point of no return too long ago, and some part of him that shouldn’t exist finally clicks into place. He’s already steeling himself, consciously getting into Sawyer-mode. But first, he gives his old self one last moment of free reign.

He takes his sharpie to the wall, and gives _fuck this place_ the scale it deserves.


End file.
